Entry · catalog no. 0808
muggles
/ /ˈmʌɡəlz/ /MUH-gulz
n. · New Orleans / Chicago jazz circuit · 1920s
✓ Verified
1.
Marijuana. A jazz-era name for the drug, long predating any later pop-culture use of the word.
“Armstrong named a whole tune 'Muggles' after it.”
Origin & Attribution
Black jazz slang of the 1920s. Louis Armstrong fixed it in the record with 'Muggles,' cut in Chicago on December 7, 1928 — a blues built to evoke the drug's feel. The word was common among jazz musicians for cannabis well before it was borrowed anywhere else; the archive notes it as jazz vernacular, not a modern coinage.
1920s
Common jazz-musician slang for cannabis
1928
Louis Armstrong records 'Muggles' in Chicago
1930s
Absorbed into the broader 'viper' vocabulary
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
The Midwest
New Orleans / Chicago jazz circuit · 1920s
Spoken by
Jazz musicians of the 1920s–30s
$MUGGLEThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Faded98 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
35/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1928
in the culture
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@chitown
Chicago, IL
@detlex
Detroit, MI
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Citations & Sources
■
Louis Armstrong, 'Muggles' — Dec 7, 1928, Chicago
recording · cited
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+ Cite a sourceDocumented jazz slang for cannabis, 1920s–30s
reference
See also